Category Archives: Spacex

Elon Musk is just $14 billion away from becoming the richest man on Earth, and potentially the richest man in human history.

The SpaceX and Tesla founder today is worth more than $227 billion, just shy of the world's richest man and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at $241 billion.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which ranks the net worth of the world's richest people on a daily basis, largely values a billionaire based off the value of the assets they own.

Because their primary assets are largely publicly-listed companies, that means the peaks and troughs of Musk's net worth is inextricably tied with the stock price of Tesla.

During the worst of the COVID pandemic, there has been few better stock options than Tesla.

In mid-May 2020, when much of the US was straining under a deluge of new cases, Tesla was worth about $USD 72.

Fast forward to January 2021, and that same stock is worth an astonishing $USD 729 a percentage gain of 912.5 per cent.

That means for every $USD 1 of Tesla you bought in May, you would have made around $USD 600 profit (not including capital gains tax).

The boom comes after Tesla hit its goal of building a half-million cars in 2020.

Elon Musk now tied with Bill Gates as second-richest person in the world: Top 10 revealed

Tesla's stock rise over the last 18 months has made it the most valuable automaker in the world.

Its current market cap is worth roughly the combined value of the next eight most valuable global automakers - Toyota, Volkswagen, Daimler, GM, BMW, Honda, Hyundai and Ford.

Volkswagen, the world's largest automaker, sold just under 11 million cars worldwide in 2019.

General Motors, the largest US automaker, had global sales of 7.7 million cars in 2019.

Additional reporting by CNN.

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Elon Musk is just $14 billion away from becoming the richest man in the world - 9News

2021 could be the year when the United States finally gets serious about closing the digital divide. And satellite might end up playing a big role.

In early December, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published the results of itsRural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction. RDOF represents more than $20 billion for service providers and their vendor partners to build broadband connections in rural and unserved areas across the U.S. The Phase 1 RDOF auction allocated $9.2 billion, and the Phase 2 auction will make $11.2 billion in funds available.

Surprisingly, SpaceX garnered $885 million in the Phase 1 auction. SpaceX has committed to use the money to bring its Starlink broadband satellite service to 642,925 rural homes and businesses across 35 states.

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RELATED: Charter scores big in Phase I of the FCC's RDOF auction for rural broadband builds

Starlink has not been commercially deployed yet. SpaceX is still in the process of testing it. But if successful, Starlink will not require any major construction to reach rural areas. Its fleet of about 700 low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites will connect to peoples homes via a dish.

For the beta tests currently being conducted, the Starlink service costs $99 per month, and customers have to pay $499 for the necessary equipment and installation, according to CNBC.

RELATED: Mareks Take: Will LEO satellite systems be able to bridge the digital divide?

Amazons Project Kuiper is another new satellite entrant. Amazon plans to invest $10 billion to deploy 3,236 LEO satellites and deliver satellite-based broadband across the U.S. Amazon also expects Project Kuiper to provide backhaul for wireless carriers, extending LTE and 5G service to new regions in the U.S. and around the world.

The company said in December that it completed initial development on the antenna for its low-cost customer terminal, a critical part of the Kuiper System.

Satellite broadband beyond the U.S.

Besides reaching unserved areas of the United States with broadband, satellite players are also looking at global needs.

AST SpaceMobile, headquartered in Midland, Texas, is building a global broadband cellular network in space to operate directly with standard, unmodified mobile devices. AST SpaceMobile is working with Vodafone Group to launch the first phase of its mobile communications service in 2023. Its initial goal is to cover the 49 largest countries in the equatorial regions of Africa.

AST SpaceMobile's initial launches will use 20 satellites targeting Vodafone markets including the Dominican Republic of Congo, Ghana, Mozambique, Kenya and Tanzania.

In mid-December, CNBC reported that special-purpose acquisition company New Providence will take AST SpaceMobile public through a deal that gives the space company an equity value of $1.8 billion. AST SpaceMobiles current investors include Vodafone, Rakuten and American Tower.

Another satellite player is U.K.-based OneWeb, a company that has been around longer than other satellite broadband providers. But it has struggled financially. In November, OneWeb emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy and confirmed that its new owners are the U.K. government and Bharti Global. OneWeb plans to offer broadband connectivity services via a constellation of 650 LEO satellites. Currently, the company has 110 satellites in orbit.

And finally, other satellite players providing residential broadband include Viasat and HughesNet. In October Viasat said it had completed the roll-out of its satellite residential internet service to 100% of the states in Brazil.

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With SpaceX winning RDOF funds, 2021 could be the year satellite broadband lifts off - FierceWireless

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Commands space operations officers support warfighters with Army space capabilities, but one officer had the opportunity to expand his space knowledge during an internship with a commercial space company.

Cpt. Cole Cupit, space superiority capability developer, Army Capability Manager for Space and High Altitude, Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence, completed a Training with Industry fellowship program with Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) in Hawthorne, California, June 2019-June 2020.

It was a great experience to be able to see the civilian space world and corporate America, and to see where it aligns with the military space world, Cupit said.

He served as a mission integration engineer on the Commercial Crew Program Mission Management Team. The teams efforts were crucial in the launch of the Crew Dragon Demo-2 spacecraft, which taxied two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in May.

That was a pretty historic moment, Cupit said. It restored Americas human spaceflight capability. It was an exciting time to be working at SpaceX to say the least.

Cupit said his internship gave him insight into the current commercial space industry, including its technology processes, business practices, corporate structure and culture, and management techniques.

During his internship, Cupit was responsible for qualification test plans and reports, and final verification reviews for more than 1,000 components on the Dragon Demo-2 spacecraft. He worked with NASA technical leads to resolve issues with the qualification of the Demo-2 Dragon vehicle, was certified as a mission control operator, and participated in crew/operator training events in preparation for the launch.

As part of the Commercial Crew Program Mission Management Team, I got to work with both SpaceX and NASA engineers to qualify the spacecraft components for flight, Cupit said. We reviewed all test plans and reports and worked together to certify that every piece of the Dragon capsule would operate as expected and keep the astronauts safe on their way to the ISS.

Cupit also contributed to the certification of the in-flight abort test that SpaceX and NASA conducted to validate the emergency abort capabilities of the Dragon capsule to separate from the Falcon-9 rocket.

He said the overall experience gave him a firsthand look into the Department of Defense acquisitions process from the perspective of the contractor. He learned the importance of taking the time to write requirements and contracts, in order to build the best collaboration between the government and contractors, which will allow them to deliver the best solutions to warfighters.

Cupit, originally from Nagodoches, Texas, graduated from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, with a bachelors degree in aerospace engineering. He has been a space operations officer for four years of his 10-year Army career.

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Space break: An SMDC officer's internship with SpaceX - Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman

SpaceX had a pretty good year.

Elon Musk's company launched 26 missions in 2020, breaking its previous calendar-year record of 21, which was set in 2018. This year's launches included SpaceX's 100th successful space mission overall, as well as the 100th of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

But the raw numbers tell only a tiny portion of the story. For example, two of SpaceX's launches this year sent astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard SpaceX Crew Dragon capsules the first orbital crewed missions to lift off from the United States since NASA grounded its space shuttle fleet in 2011.

Related: The 10 biggest spaceflight stories of 2020

The first of those groundbreaking Crew Dragon flights, a test mission called Demo-2, launched on May 30 and carried NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the orbiting lab for a two-month stay.

"Today,a new era in human spaceflight begins as we once again launched American astronauts on American rockets from American soil on their way to the International Space Station,our national lab orbiting Earth," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement just after Demo-2's launch.

"The launch of this commercial space system designed for humans is a phenomenal demonstration of American excellence and is an important step on our path to expand human exploration to the moon and Mars," Bridenstine added.

Demo-2's success paved the way for Crew-1, the first operational astronaut mission SpaceX has flown under a $2.6 billion contract the company signed with NASA's Commercial Crew Program in 2014. Crew-1, which lifted off on Nov. 15, took NASA's Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins and Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi to the station for a six-month stint.

SpaceX also flew two other missions to the ISS this year uncrewed resupply flights using the robotic cargo version of Dragon, which launched in March and December, respectively.

But more than half of the 2020 missions 14 of them, to be precise launched in support of SpaceX's Starlink satellite-internet project. Each of those 14 lofted about 60 Starlink spacecraft to low Earth orbit, growing the constellation to epic (and, in many astronomers' eyes, worrying) proportions.

SpaceX has now launched more than 950 Starlink satellites to date, and about 900 of them remain in orbit, constituting by far the largest constellation ever assembled. For perspective: Just 3,300 operational satellites currently zoom around Earth, and humanity has launched 10,500 spacecraft to orbit since the dawn of the space age in 1957, according to the European Space Agency.

Starlink will get much bigger still, if all goes according to plan. SpaceX has secured permission from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch 12,000 Starlink satellites, and the company has filed paperwork for up to 30,000 more.

But 900 satellites is enough to provide at least some internet coverage, and SpaceX began a public beta test of Starlink service in October of this year. And in December, the FCC granted SpaceX nearly $900 million in subsidies to bring broadband to rural areas across the U.S.

Related: SpaceX's Starlink satellite megaconstellation launches in photos

All 26 of the 2020 launches employed the two-stage Falcon 9, which features a reusable first stage. On 23 of those missions, SpaceX managed to land the first stage safely back on Earth so it can fly again in the future.

There were just two missed touchdown attempts in February and March, when a returning Falcon 9 booster failed to stick its landing at sea on one of SpaceX's two robotic "drone ships." (Nineteen of this year's successful touchdowns occurred on such ships, and only four occurred on terra firma.)

One 2020 mission, a January test of Crew Dragon's in-flight abort system, did not feature a landing attempt. Crew Dragon fired its escape thrusters early in the uncrewed flight and jetted clear of its rocket ride, as it would in the event of a real launch emergency. The Falcon 9's first stage was destroyed shortly thereafter by aerodynamic forces, as SpaceX had expected.

And this landing success rate wasn't SpaceX's only notable reusability milestone of 2020. Two of this year's flights a Starlink launch on Nov. 24 and the Dec. 13 liftoff of a Sirius XM broadcasting satellite used Falcon 9 first stages that already had six missions under their belts.

Coming into 2020, SpaceX had never flown a single Falcon 9 booster seven separate times. And the company just did it twice in less than weeks.

Musk has repeatedly said that he founded SpaceX back in 2002 primarily with one aim in mind helping humanity colonize Mars.

The company took significant steps in 2020 toward accomplishing this ambitious goal. The biggest and most dramatic step occurred on Dec. 9, when SpaceX launched a shiny silver vehicle called SN8 on a 7.8-mile-high (12.5 kilometers) test flight from the company's South Texas facility, near the Gulf Coast village of Boca Chica.

SN8 ("Serial No. 8") is the latest prototype of Starship, the spacecraft that SpaceX is developing to take people to and from Mars, the moon and other distant destinations. Like the envisioned final Starship, SN8 is made of stainless steel, stands about 165 feet (50 meters) tall and is powered by SpaceX's next-generation Raptor engine.

The operational Starship will have six Raptors, Musk has said. SN8 had only three, but they were powerful enough to take the vehicle far higher than any Starship prototype had ever gone before. The previous altitude record was 500 feet (150 m), achieved in the summer of 2019 and this past August and September by three single-engine craft Starhopper, SN5 and SN6, respectively.

And SN8 did more than just fly high; it performed a "belly flop" and other complex aerial maneuvers similar to the ones the operational Starship will execute when coming back to Earth from space missions. The prototype also landed where SpaceX wanted it to, though SN8 came in too fast and exploded. (SN8's flight technically takes SpaceX's 2020 launch tally to 27, but I kept it off the "official" list because it was a test involving a prototype vehicle.)

SN8's fiery demise did not dampen the enthusiasm of Musk, who viewed the first high-altitude Starship flight as a resounding success.

"Mars, here we come!" he tweeted shortly after the test.

Starship will launch from Earth atop a giant rocket called Super Heavy, which will sport about 30 Raptors. Like Falcon 9 first stages, Super Heavy will land shortly after liftoff and be used again, Musk has said. (Starship will be powerful enough to launch itself off the moon and Mars, both of which have much weaker gravity than Earth does.)

No Super Heavy prototype has gotten off the ground to date. But the next Starship vehicle, SN9, should soon take a leap: it moved to the pad last week.

SpaceX wants Starship to be up and running soon. Musk recently said he's confident that the vehicle will be flying people to Mars by 2026, and such missions could launch as early as 2024 "if we're lucky."

That timeframe would mesh well with NASA's current crewed moon plans, which the agency is pursuing through its Artemis program. Artemis aims to land two astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2024 and to establish a sustainable human presence on and around the moon by 2028.

Starship could end up helping to make all of this happen. In April, NASA selected Starship as a candidate to take its astronauts to the lunar surface, along with human landers being developed by Dynetics and a coalition led by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. And in October, NASA awarded SpaceX a $53 million contract to demonstrate in-space refueling using Starship, another bright spot in the company's memorable 2020.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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SpaceX's very big year: A 2020 filled with astronaut launches, Starship tests and more - Space.com

SpaceX dropped an early Christmas present for space fans everywhere this week with an amazing video recap of its first major test launch of a Starship rocket.

The video, which SpaceX unveiled Wednesday (Dec. 23), shows the company's first high-altitude launch of its giant Starship SN8, a rocket prototype for a fully reusable space launch system for trips to the moon and Mars. SpaceX launched the Starship SN8 on Dec. 8 from a pad it its test facility near the village of Boca Chica in South Texas.

"12 story rocket turns off its engines & does a controlled fall," SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk wrote on Twitter.

Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX's Mars-colonizing vehicles in images

During the Dec. 8, SpaceX's Starship SN8 launched to an altitude of about 7.8 miles (12.5 kilometers) using its three Raptor engines. At its peak, the rocket shut down its engines and performed a "belly flop" to make a controlled glide to a landing site near its launch pad.

Just before touchdown, Starship SN8 fired up one of its engines once more to flip the rocket around to attempt an upright landing similar to those regularly performed by SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters. But the rocket landed a bit too fast due to a lower than expected fuel tank header pressure, cause it to crash and explode in a brilliant fireball.

In the new video, SpaceX catches that moment with a camera just below the booster at the landing pad, as well as from afar. Musk and SpaceX celebrated the launch test despite the explosion, adding that the mission proved Starship's ability not only to launch on the company's new Raptor engines, but also glide itself back to Earth to a landing spot.

"SN8 did great!" Musk wrote on Twitter on Dec. 9. "Even reaching apogee would've been great, so controlling all the way to putting the crater in the right spot was epic."

"Mars, here we come," Musk wrote later.

SpaceX expressed similar sentiments in the recap video.

"SN8 demonstrated a first-of-its-kind controlled aerodynamic descent and a landing flip maneuver," SpaceX states in the video. "Together these will enable landing where no runways exist including the moon, Mars and beyond."

Musk has said the company may save the SN8 wreckage to preserve its memory.

Indeed, NASA has tapped SpaceX's Starship vehicle as a contender for crewed moon landing missions under its Artemis program. The company's final Starship vehicle will include both the Starship spacecraft and a massive reusable booster called Super Heavy to launch deep-space missions.

SpaceX is already hard at work preparing its next Starship prototype, the SN9 rocket, for its own test launch, possibly later this month. The rocket required some extra work earlier this month after it appeared to tip slightly inside its hangar at Boca Chica, according to images captured by Starship watchers and posted on Twitter.

But the rocket has since rolled out to to its launch pad.

"Next up: SN9," SpaceX said.

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.

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Relive SpaceX's Starship SN8 test launch with this epic recap video - Space.com

SpaceX aimed for up to 39 launches in 2020. The company wound up with 26, which still makes it the most prolific year for Elon Musk and his team, and second only to China and its Long March family of rockets with an unofficial count of 30.

Most notably, SpaceX's number includes two missions that carried astronauts to the International Space Station aboard a Crew Dragon, setting a number of milestones for human spaceflight. The Demo 2 mission that took NASA's Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the space station was the first crewed commercial flight and the first from US soil since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. SpaceX did it again with four astronauts, including one from Japan's space agency, JAXA, on the Crew-1 mission in November.

From the lab to your inbox. Get the latest science stories from CNET every week.

The 14 Starlink satellite launches made up more than half the SpaceX flights this year, brought the broadband constellation closer to its first 1,000 flying routers in orbit and enabled the Better Than Nothingbeta to begin in October.

In addition to those 26 Falcon 9 flights, SpaceX also continued development of its next-generation Starship rocket at its south Texas facility. This culminated in the dramatic first high-altitude flight of a prototype, which was deemed a success despite the hard, explosive landing after reaching about 8 miles (12.5 kilometers) in altitude.

In 2021 we can expect even more of the same, with scheduled Falcon 9 missions carrying Starlinks, bigger satellites and more astronauts to space. There are even a few Falcon Heavy launches on the calendar, which we didn't get to see in 2020. And certainly we'll be seeing more from the Starship development team in Texas.

Meanwhile, sit back and enjoy every launch Elon and his pals brought us during what was otherwise a year we'd rather forget.

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Watch every SpaceX launch from 2020 and say Auld Lang Syne with fire - CNET

Suzie Dills| Special to Akron Beacon Journal

Although 2020 was a very difficult year for us, it gave us a chance to take time to observe astronomical highlights and night sky delights and view live broadcasts of historic launches. Many of us enjoyed the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn and the surprise visit of Comet NEOWISE. We watched the launch of the next Mars rover, Perseverance, in July. History was made with the NASA SpaceX Crew Dragon flight, the first American rocket launch since 2011 and the NASA SpaceX Crew-1 Mission.

Mars Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is scheduled to land inside the 28-mile Jezero Crater, on Feb. 18. Perseverance will search for signs of ancient life in Jezero Crater, which harbored a lake and river delta billions of years ago. The rover will collect and store samples for future return to Earth, along with demonstrating technology that could aid in future exploration. A tiny helicopter, namedIngenuity, hitched a ride on the belly of Perseverance. After the rover lands, it will find a place for Ingenuity to conduct test flights. Then Ingenuity will make a few short flights into the Martian skies. This will be the first ever flight by a rotorcraft on a planet beyond Earth.

SpaceX crew In May, the NASA SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts will return to Earth. Soon after the NASA SpaceX Crew-2 Mission with four astronauts aboard will head to the International Space Station. The Crew-2 astronauts will spend six months at the ISS.

Boeing crew Boeing Orbital Flight Test-2 is targeted to launch March 29. The first crewed mission for Boeings CST-100 Starlinerwill be slated for June or later.

Moon The first stage of the Artemis program for the return to the moonby humanswill begin with the launch of Artemis Iin November 2021. The mission is designed to test the crew spacecraft Orion and the Space Launch System. Crewed Artemis missions will follow.

Space telescope The James Webb Telescope is still on track for launch on Oct. 31. The James Webb Telescope will be the largest and most powerful space telescope ever built and launched into space. With the Webb, we will be able see much closer to the beginning of time, when the first stars and galaxies started to form.

March 10 The thin crescent moon joins Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn in the morning twilight.

April 25 Mercury and Venus will be about a degree apart, low in the western sky after sunset.

April 26 Supermoon: closest full moon of the year.

May 12 Venus and the thin crescent moon, less than 1 degree apart, low in the west-northwest at dusk.

May 26 Partial lunar eclipse, begins at 5:44 a.m. with the moon setting at 6:02 a.m.

June 10 Partial solar eclipse, will be underway with the sunrise at 5:52 am. Maximum at 5:55 a.m., and eclipse will end at 6:35 a.m.

July 11 The thin crescent moon will be 5 degrees from Venus and Mars, which will be separated by 1 degree low in the western sky at dusk.

Aug. 22 Seasonal blue moon, occurs when we have four full moonsin one season. The third is called the blue moon. This is the original definition of a blue moon.

Nov. 19 Near-total lunar eclipse. Partial eclipse begins at 2:18 a.m., maximum at 4:02 a.m. and eclipse ends at 5:47 a.m.

Dec. 5 Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and the moon form a spectacular line in the western sky after sunset.

Planets and moon:Jupiter and Saturn start the month low in the southwestern sky, right after sunset. By mid-month, they drop from view, but will return to the morning sky next month. Mercury returns to the evening sky in January and creates a spectacular trio with Jupiter and Saturn, in the southwest, right after sunset Jan. 10. Mercury will continue to climb higher and remains visible through the end of the month. Mercury reaches greatest elongation Jan. 23, 19 degrees east of the sun. Mars shines brightly overhead all month but continues to move away from Earth. At the beginning of the month, Mars is 84.3 million miles from Earth, at months end it will be 111 million miles away. Brilliant Venus will be low in the predawn southeastern at the beginning of January but lost in the suns glare at months end. Jan. 18-22 will be a great time to spot Uranus. Mars will pass north of Uranus, with Jan. 21 as the best night, when Uranus is 1.7 degreesdue south of Mars. On Jan. 1, Neptune will be 1 degree east of Phi Aquarii in eastern Aquarius. On Jan.14, the moon pairs with Mercury, 35 minutes after sunset. Then on Jan. 17 the moon passes south of Neptune and on Jan. 21 passes south of Mars and Uranus. In the predawn sky, the moon pairs with Venus on Jan. 11.

Constellations:East Great star hopping in this part of the sky! Start with the most magnificent picture in our stars, Orion, the Hunter. Look for the three stars in a line, which make up the belt of Orion. The bright red-orange star up and to the left of the belt is Betelgeuse. The bright blue-white star down and to the right of the belt is Rigel. Draw a line up from the belt to a red, orange star, Aldebaran, which is the eye of Taurus, the Bull. The sideways V shape is the face of Taurus. Above Taurus, the small cluster of stars is the Pleiades or Seven Sisters. Making a counterclockwise loop from the Pleiades, the next bright star is Capella. Continuing down, the two stars you see are Gemini, the Twins.

North The Big Dipper is beginning to swing up on its handle. Following the two stars at the end of the cup to the next bright star, is Polaris, or the North Star. The constellation Cassiopeia is above and to the left of Polaris and resembles the letter M.

West There you will see four stars that form the Great Square of Pegasus.

Binocular highlights When facing north, locate the M shape of Cassiopeia. From the left point of the M shape, scan slowly up to the left. You will see a fuzzy circular shape. That is the Andromeda Galaxy. It is 2.5 million light years away. From the right point of the M,scan up slightly. You will come upon the Double Cluster in Perseus. High overhead, you will see the small cluster of stars, the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. ThePleiades is a beautiful open star cluster. Head to Orion, the Hunter. Scan below the three stars of Orions belt. You will see fuzzy area with bright stars. This is the Orion Nebula, a hydrogen gas cloud where new stars are forming.

The peak of the Quadrantid Meteor Shower is Jan. 3.

For further night sky details, maps and audio, visit my website http://www.starrytrails.com.

Visit the Hoover Price Planetarium: Visit http://www.mckinleymuseum.org, for limited show dates and times. Planetarium shows are free with museum admission. Seating is limited and will be on a first-come, first-served basis. The planetarium is located inside the McKinley Presidential Library & Museum, 800 McKinley Monument DriveNWin Canton. For more information,call the museum at 330-455-7043.

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What's Up in the Sky: Here's what to expect in 2021 - Akron Beacon Journal

Elon Musk outlines his Neuralink brain implant trial on pigs

The billionaire Tesla CEO shared a controversial image apparently mocking users who specify their preferred pronouns on their profile description.He had been previously called out by members of the public and his partner, Grimes, he tweeted that pronouns suck.

The image depicts a British Redcoat wearing a hat featuring the words I love to oppress on a backdrop showing a painting of the American Revolutionary War.

The subject is seen smearing blood on his face with the caption to the bizarre image reading: When you put he/him in [your] bio.

Other social media users were quick to condemn the alleged transphobic connotations.

One Twitter user said: I was sure people put he/him she/her etc in bios to normalise putting pronouns in there so people who ate gender fluid, non binary etc can feel more comfortable and state their pronouns without people thinking it's weird or out of nowhere.

Another person added: I dont get the joke. If/when I put my preferred pronouns in my email sig or bio it would be to normalise the usage.

As a way of showing support to the movement. Just like 99% of the times Ive seen it in emails/bios. No big deal.

A third commenter said: Man you guys are straight up delusional. Transphobia rots your brain.

However, some users did not agree with accommodating to other peoples preferred pronouns.

Some even classed the inclusion of pronouns in Twitter bios as authoritarian.

One user wrote: Our obligation to people is to treat them with dignity and respect.

Our obligation is not to change our language and culture to accommodate the preferences of a few and demands to do so have strong authoritarian overtones.

Another commenter, who echoed similar claims, added: Polite requests are perfectly acceptable.

DON'T MISS:Elon Musk and SpaceX want to get humans to Mars in just six years[REVEAL]SpaceX Starink launch: Watch Falcon 9 launch SpaceX Starlink mission[INSIGHT]Elon Musk states first Mars settlers will have to live in glass domes[UPDATE]

Trying to get people fired/divorced/arrested/cancelled because they refuse your request is where it becomes authoritarian.

Mr Musks partner, Canadian singer Grimes, previously called him out over a tweet claiming pronouns suck.

Grimes, whos real name is Claire Boucher, wrote in a now-deleted tweet: I love you but please turn off ur phone or give me a [call].

I cannot support this hate. Please stop this. I know this is not your heart.

The singer has openly spoken out about trans issues, refusing to reveal the gender of her baby when she was pregnant in case that's not how they feel.

Asked about the gender of her baby during a YouTube live stream, Grimes said: I don't want to say the gender of the baby ... because I feel like their privacy should be protected.

I don't think they can consent to being famous or being in public.

I don't want to gender them in case that's not how they feel in their life.

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Elon Musk sparks Twitter meltdown as SpaceX boss accused of sharing 'transphobic' meme - Daily Express

NASA astronaut Victor Glover, one of the four astronauts aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, posted a video on Twitter of the stunning view from Earth on his first-ever trip to space.

The video shows Glover sitting by a window soaking in the view from outer space. The astronaut, who is serving as a pilot and second-in-command on the Dragon, said the view was amazing but the video "doesn't do it justice."

NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins and Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi are also members of the mission, called Crew-1.

It marks the second-ever crewed flight of a SpaceX spacecraft.

The Crew-1 astronauts are expected to spend about six months on board the ISS, where they'll work on a variety of science experiments and conduct space walks to continue updates and repairs on the space station's exterior.

CNN's Jackie Wattles contributed to this report.

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Here's how Earth looked to astronauts aboard the SpaceX capsule - CNN

Once again, Elon Musk and his SpaceX team fulfill the space mission, in this case the 100th launch was achieved with Falcon 9, which put 60 Starlink satellites into orbit.

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November26, 20203 min read

On Tuesday, November 24 at night, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket was successfully launched and not only that, it also managed to break the record - for the seventh time - of sending 60 satellites that will be put into orbit to provide satellite internet through of Starlink, which is a company that originated as a SpaceX project to create a constellation of internet satellites in order to provide broadband service, low latency and global coverage at a low cost. This launch made history with SpaceX's 100th space trip - Falcon 9 spacecraft - and Starlink's sixteenth mission.

The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket left Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 9:13 p.m. Tuesday. Subsequently, the booster returned to Earth and landed on the platform called "Of course I still love you." Falcon 9 was recovered in good condition and without mishaps. SpaceX has launched approximately 830 Starlink satellites that are already working.

The purpose of Starlink is to cover the planet with a network of 42,000 satellites that transfer the internet at high speed.

While we know that the Falcon 9 rocket can be reused. In September 2018, it participated in the Telstar 18 VANTAGE mission, in January 2019 it completed the Iridum-8 mission and four subsequent Starlink missions in 2019 and 2020.

An all-time record was met on this 23rd SpaceX 2020 launch mission, as it was the most trips made by the company in just this year.

As is already known, the project known as "Beta Better Than Nothing" is committed to bringing the Internet globally. On October 18, the SpaceX company began its public beta test for Starlink. Trials were conducted in the northern US and southern Canada, a public beta test is now planned for the entire North America launch. Based on this, the company continues to send satellites into our orbit.

According to the Starlink website, coverage is sought with its signal in the United States and Canada by the end of 2020 and "almost global coverage" by 2021.

Find out more: Prices for SpaceX's Starlink, Elon Musk's 'space internet' are leaked

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